Fiction: The Hunger That Bothers Me

My eyes scans the red loose soil that moves in a blur as I walk over it. My shoes are now covered in dust so that it’s tired leather hides behind the red coating of sand. Although the sun, like my pride, hides behind thick gray clouds, I still feel heat crawl up my throat. My hands are buried deep in my pocket, the fabric feels harsh and dry and empty. I have not made any sales today, even though I had approached a billion people. Some were polite enough to shake their heads as if it were the most normal thing in the world. Some, burdened by their own problems, simply ignored me. The others were down right rude. It made me wonder why a person would be so engulfed in their own problems so much that others become like stones and sticks - unworthy of life. A weary smile spread across my face as I remembered the man who I had walked up to at Dominoes Pizza. He had two adorable kids that made me smile and remember my Tobi. I walked up to him. Perhaps I could talk to him - one father to another - and may be convince him that he needed an account with the bank I worked for. He looked at me with a frown that resembled fear as he dragged his kids closer in a protective fashion.
“No! No!! Please don’t sit down here,” he said as his arms swept over his children as if he was shielding them from impending danger. I stood there - the fluorescent light that hung down the piercing white ceiling must have exposed my shame - and wondered if my poverty was really that obvious to turn me into an impending danger. Minutes later as I walked through the parking lot, suddenly realizing how uncomfortably warm the Lagos afternoon air really was, I saw the same man. He was talking to Nneka. She wore the same shirt I was wearing that had the bold inscription of one of the big Nigerian banks. He was smiling as his kids carelessly ran around deranged. He did not seem too keen on protecting them from any impending danger.
As I walk home now, deliberately ignoring the bus conductors that are calling out their destination - my destination, I can’t help but wonder if the man only realized he needed an account with us because Nneka is a woman, or if he realized an impending danger only because I am a man. I cringe at my own thoughts. There are too perverse for a man to harbor. A man should never think like that, even though that is what it might have been. He must consistently stay blind to these things and put his attention on his hunger - loud pangs that bloomed until my head ached. It is my hunger that bothers me. I am more bothered about the tightness I feel in my chest and the fear that tugs at my throat. How would I go back home and tell Anita and Tobi that we would all go to bed hungry again tonight?